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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Ah, so Benjamin Boyce is just an old school MRA

77 replies

Itsallgravee · 28/11/2022 10:13

Shame, he's had some good female guests on his show before and now it turns out he was just humouring them.

twitter.com/BenjaminABoyce/status/1597097598233772036?s=20&t=hzu04J9L8fUw4vcH7qmPFA

Ah, so Benjamin Boyce is just an old school MRA
OP posts:
WarriorN · 28/11/2022 18:26

My understanding of radical feminism is very much based in evolution and biology (please correct me if I'm wrong); I don't think he gets radical feminism.

GrinitchSpinach · 28/11/2022 19:53

Perfect response from the Queen:

Ah, so Benjamin Boyce is just an old school MRA
WarriorN · 28/11/2022 20:35

👏

DameMaud · 28/11/2022 20:36

Latest tweet. He's trying to clarify:

I'm not "blaming women" for the misdeeds of men. I'm pithing that Gender Ideology / Queer Theory was engineered & spread by post-structuralist academic feminists, who turned "women studies" into "gender studies" and currently dominate higher ed. eg:
youtube.com
Judith Butler: Your Behavior Creates Your Gender | Big Think

beastlyslumber · 28/11/2022 20:41

Yeah, that's what I thought he was probably trying to say.

Is Butler an 'academic feminist'? Not sure, but I definitely know when I was at uni, Butler was taught as though she were a feminist, and feminist critique was ALL the pomo/post-structuralist/queer stuff. I think he's right that gender ideology has some of its roots here.

WarriorN · 28/11/2022 20:45

To be fair, I've watched a friend who I'm sure is deep down GC, as she gets sexism hugely, and is a social sciences, feminism and gender studies lecturer start to do engage with the likes of sally Hines and that awful bourgeois woman at Newcastle university.

If you do gender studies now you're more likely to be being taught by the likes of sally and Bourgeois woman than Stock, let's face it.

But they're not feminists and that's not feminism.

WomaninBoots · 28/11/2022 20:47

I was just trying to work out how to say that that's what I thought he was getting at. How Queer Theory got one of its footholds in the academy through women's studies and all that.

Trying to make a pithy statement where one part mirrors the other out of it and losing meaning in the process. And probably being trolly and wanting to provoke discussion. I don't think it amounts to bring an MRA.

FlirtsWithRhinos · 28/11/2022 20:47

I think this is rubbish but by saying that biology sex doesn’t matter at all for life choices, the end result is trans ideology. If biology is unimportant, why can’t males be women?

I realise this is just paraphrasing an argument rather than what you believe, but FWIW that logic doesn't hold.

If "biology sex doesn’t matter at all for life choices" then the entire concept of men and women, which originated from the observation of the sexes, is meaningless OTHER than as a biological descriptor.

So far from the end result being trans ideology, the end result of believing biology is unimportant is that there is nothing to trans from and to. If there is no difference between a male person and a female person except the body, social transition doesn't exist and physical transition makes no difference to how you live.

Trans ideologists don't get that - they hold the mutually impossible position that bodies don't matter but men and women minds somehow exist anyway - that humanity was weirdly entirely correct that men and women exist, but totally wrong about how to know who is who. It's like believing that France and Germany exist but whether you are French or German is actually the result of which sports teams you follow.

WomaninBoots · 28/11/2022 20:47

being*

WarriorN · 28/11/2022 20:48

By the way Jk is everywhere this evening, popping up on every thread I've been reading.

She's offered some support to Sinead.

I also saw a tweet to BB from a While ago about something else by Sinead around "I love you but I'm too tired for your riddles..." - he does like to tweet in riddles.

WarriorN · 28/11/2022 20:49

Does Zoe think of herself as a feminist?

DameMaud · 28/11/2022 21:14

FlirtsWithRhinos · 28/11/2022 20:47

I think this is rubbish but by saying that biology sex doesn’t matter at all for life choices, the end result is trans ideology. If biology is unimportant, why can’t males be women?

I realise this is just paraphrasing an argument rather than what you believe, but FWIW that logic doesn't hold.

If "biology sex doesn’t matter at all for life choices" then the entire concept of men and women, which originated from the observation of the sexes, is meaningless OTHER than as a biological descriptor.

So far from the end result being trans ideology, the end result of believing biology is unimportant is that there is nothing to trans from and to. If there is no difference between a male person and a female person except the body, social transition doesn't exist and physical transition makes no difference to how you live.

Trans ideologists don't get that - they hold the mutually impossible position that bodies don't matter but men and women minds somehow exist anyway - that humanity was weirdly entirely correct that men and women exist, but totally wrong about how to know who is who. It's like believing that France and Germany exist but whether you are French or German is actually the result of which sports teams you follow.

That's really interesting and makes alot of sense to me Flirts.

(I think it would be good for BB to read this thread!)

WarriorN · 28/11/2022 21:29

I don't think transgenderism has come about because of feminism in anyway.

I know women who I'm not sure describe themselves as feminists but are in the terf wars who track more links to trans humanism; matrix appears to have kick started that plus it's writers both transitioned, as well as porn and the impact of lives online. (For one of those it appears to have been from bdsm vaults.)

Also in gaming, which links to trans humanism, and in forums, which provides the brainwashing/ group think. We know the impact of social media on young teen's minds. Which TW admitted porn made them trans? Detransitioners have also mentioned this.

Add in the toxic boost of big pharma making an enormous amount of money plus lgb charities needing new causes to champion after gay marriage was won and you've a melting pot of glittery consumerism both online and off.

Triggernometry asked Colin Wright what was the one thing we should be talking about and aren't and he stated the impact of charities and their funding / output in all this.

Butler et Al have a lot to answer for but still not feminists!

WarriorN · 28/11/2022 21:30

Sorry tired, grammar going to pot.

MangyInseam · 28/11/2022 21:38

I read him to be saying that the demands of women that they are no different in any important way to men, meant that it was possible to make the argument that "being a woman" was something like a performance of gender, and have people believe it.

I don't think he's wrong, it was absolutely a factor. I am sure some will say that feminists never claimed that - I would point out that there have in fact been plenty of pop feminist who have, and the culture as a whole has tried to make that claim. You can see t in many of the 90s woman power films, and it was commonly argued when I was in the army as a reason to let women into the combat arms, with people pushing that view (not usually female soldiers in my experience) even saying that if there was no prejudice against it, women would perform at the same level as men.

WarriorN · 28/11/2022 21:50

"pop feminists" yes I think that's been a problem. And I can see how thinking that's feminism leads to ideas he stated (whether he truly believes them or not.)

GrinitchSpinach · 28/11/2022 21:53

I generally appreciate Boyce's range of guests and interviewing style. He asks good questions and, most importantly, really gives guests the scope to speak without interruption and in depth.

That said, he gets on my nerves from time to time, especially when it comes to feminists drawing attention to the overall pattern of women's second-class treatment in society.

Like many men, he seems capable of understanding and even empathizing with discrete threads of injustice against women and girls, but when it comes to looking at the big picture, I don't think he would agree that the strands are intertwined.

Rampant MVAWG; the objectification and mega-lucrative exploitation of women and girls through prostitution, porn, surrogacy; the outrageous claim that male people can occupy women's and girls' existence (and do it better than we)----none of this could thrive without large portions of society believing at some level that women and girls are less than 100% human, with rich inner lives and full individual personhood of our own.

One thing that strikes me about his interviews is that his disposition toward guests seems to have much more to do with their personalities than with their actual positions. What I mean is that he seems to have an emotional reaction to their perceived friendliness vs. brusqueness and he lets it color his evaluation of their arguments.

I have seen him accused of privileging young, conventionally attractive/femininity-performing women guests, but I don't think it's as simple as that.

He seemed charmed by Julie Bindel, but fairly antagonistic toward Kara Dansky (and Jane Clare Jones, iirc). I think the difference was that Bindel came off as very affable, smiling often, while Dansky and Jones (although not at all hostile) were direct, blunt, and focused on an intellectually challenging discussion.

DameMaud · 28/11/2022 21:59

WarriorN · 28/11/2022 21:50

"pop feminists" yes I think that's been a problem. And I can see how thinking that's feminism leads to ideas he stated (whether he truly believes them or not.)

Yes. It's just weird that he has had such complex and seemingly enjoyable discussions with so many non-pop feminists over the years.
The more I think about it, and thinking how he always seems to raise that point, as a kind of contention, when he does talk to them, the more I think he does actually have a bias/stuck point there that he can't get past.
Maybe he has had a bad, personal experience with a 'pop' feminist at some point and that colours his view of feminism generally- and yes, that doesn't make him an MRA, but it could mean that a personal grudge is leaking out in his 'pithy provocation'.
Just a hypothesis

FlirtsWithRhinos · 28/11/2022 22:03

it was commonly argued when I was in the army as a reason to let women into the combat arms, with people pushing that view (not usually female soldiers in my experience) even saying that if there was no prejudice against it, women would perform at the same level as men

I'll hold my hand up and say I believed that.

I had no brothers and a single sex education so I didn't have direct experience of how male strength exceeds female. Then as as adult I starting to see of how society's expectations of what women they can do define women's beliefs about their mental abilities and available life choices became self-fulfilling prophecies - how so much of what we objectively "observe" is actually what we already expect to see - so seeing how boys were being brought up with "don't cry and give up, get back up again!" while girls got "it's ok to fail, it's just a game" made me think physical ability was self-fulfilling in the same way.

It wasn't until someone here shared the boys vs women stats that I realised just how significant the differences are.

(Which was kind of depressing, but also made me feel better about all the times I've kicked myself for not keeping up with the blokes in the physical hobbies I've had as an adult!)

beastlyslumber · 28/11/2022 22:07

Maybe I shouldn't say this because I don't actually want to start a fight but I'm always amused by the tendency of feminists to claim that any feminist they don't agree with isn't a feminist at all. Conversely that anyone they do agree with is a feminist, even if the person in question is clear that they do not consider themselves to be a feminist.

It's such a vague ideology/identity, I think BB can be forgiven for calling feminists feminists even if they're not feminists according to some other feminists.

I'm not sure Butler ever identified as a feminist, but she was certainly identified to me as a feminist by other feminists who thought that Butler was an excellent feminist.

namitynamechange · 28/11/2022 22:08

Twitter is crap for those kind of conversations generally. Whereas this thread has been generally interesting and applied so much nuanced analysis to what was a very simplistic (and probably deliberately provocative) tweet.
I do think we are going to see the "this was all the fault of feminists" line more and more though. And even though I do think the pop/boss-babe/super academic butler feminism has been massively unhelpful I don't think its the only/main cause of us being where we are.

WarriorN · 28/11/2022 22:10

Can't remember that shon quote in detail but... Being a feminist is an ethereal thing of shifting constellations ... 🤣

beastlyslumber · 28/11/2022 22:13

WarriorN · 28/11/2022 22:10

Can't remember that shon quote in detail but... Being a feminist is an ethereal thing of shifting constellations ... 🤣

Hahaha! Good call!

DameMaud · 28/11/2022 22:15

beastlyslumber · 28/11/2022 22:07

Maybe I shouldn't say this because I don't actually want to start a fight but I'm always amused by the tendency of feminists to claim that any feminist they don't agree with isn't a feminist at all. Conversely that anyone they do agree with is a feminist, even if the person in question is clear that they do not consider themselves to be a feminist.

It's such a vague ideology/identity, I think BB can be forgiven for calling feminists feminists even if they're not feminists according to some other feminists.

I'm not sure Butler ever identified as a feminist, but she was certainly identified to me as a feminist by other feminists who thought that Butler was an excellent feminist.

Oh no! I thought I was starting to get the hang of all this feminism and all the waves mullarky and now I'm totally confused Beastly!😂😂

Feminism itself seems like an umbrella term the more I look into it.

I think I'll just go with thinking of meself as a 'Women's rights advocate'

Itsbiasedhere · 28/11/2022 22:17

BernardBlacksMolluscs · 28/11/2022 10:18

women are responsible for the actions of others?

gosh, that’s a new one

Increasingly on here men are responsible for the actions of others so why not equality?